"AHS Display Garden - Bettie Jernigan Historical Daylily Garden"
(Cape Fear Botanical Garden)

Cape Fear Botanical Garden, Fayetteville, is an 80-acre garden carved from a mixed pine and hardwood forest bordered on two sides by the Cape Fear River and Cross Creek. The Garden, which was chartered in 1989, has approximately 20 acres under cultivation. The remainder preserves natural areas of the region's indigenous plants and wildlife. Hundreds of native species flourish along the trails and steep ravines of the rich floodplain. Walking trails meander through the natural areas where plants normally thought of as mountain flora mingle with the more typical piedmont flora.

Mission Statement Cape Fear Botanical Garden serves this region as a center for: Enrichment, inspiration and enjoyment of nature; The collection, culture and aesthetic display of plants; Encouragement of environmental stewardship; Conservation, education and research; The preservation of our agricultural heritage; and Engagement and involvement of the community.

The Hazel McCauley Heritage Garden complex preserves the agricultural history of the Cape Fear area and provides a unique interpretive display of farm life as it was at the turn of the 19th century. Today, visitors to the Garden will find an 1880's farmhouse, an original log corncrib, a one-room General Store, a smokehouse, a 1930's log tobacco barn and a reproduction outhouse surrounded by the Heritage Garden itself.

The Mary McLaurin Camellia Garden boasts over 275 mature camellias including 190 distinct cultivars or species; it is a member of the American Camellia Trail. It provides color in the late fall through spring months. The Eleanor and Raymond Manning Children's Garden, Butterfly Stroll, and other gardens provide unique educational experiences for young and old alike.

The Bettie Jernigan Historical Daylily Garden was originally built by members of the Sandhills Daylily Club and dedicated in 1996. Named for a charter member of the club and mentor to many gardeners in the area, the original garden was moved in 2008 to a natural amphitheater close to the river to make way for the Garden's Wyatt Visitors Pavilion. The daylily garden's current location at the front of the Garden is the result of Hurricane Matthew in 2016 which left the daylily garden under about 8 feet of water. CFBG weathered 3 hurricanes and 2 five-hundred-year floods from 2016 to 2018.

The new daylily garden is about 3 times the size of the original garden and gave the opportunity to increase the number of daylilies to about 700 as well as adding companion plants to provide interest during all seasons of the year. The Stout Medal bed has all the daylily cultivars that have won the Stout Medal planted by year of the award. Heritage daylilies, beginning with species, are grouped by decades to show development of the daylily from 1893 through the 1980s. Miniatures, smalls, doubles, spiders and unusual forms have their own beds. One bed features cultivars registered by Bettie Jernigan and Roger Mercer, one of the founders of CFBG. The garden also has a small pond and bog. Now, if we could keep the deer out and weeds under control!

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